


Alchemy of Bones

by McShipIt



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Friendship/Love, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-17
Updated: 2015-02-17
Packaged: 2018-03-13 09:30:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3376505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/McShipIt/pseuds/McShipIt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alchemy: A power or process of transforming something common into something special.</p><div class="center">
  <p><br/><a href="http://uploads.im/pcQts.jpg"></a><br/>    <img/><br/></p>
</div><hr/>
            </blockquote>





	Alchemy of Bones

 

The first time it happened, Jim left before the sheets were dry.

There were no awkward glances, red faces or stumbling around in the morning looking for discarded socks and shirts. In the dark, there was mystery, and imperfections were blurred, well hidden from the naked eye. It wasn’t like the dawn where everything was real and raw, like someone removing a bandage off a wound that wasn’t healed, and everything was oozing ugliness.

It had been a mistake; a fleeting grasp at desperate loneliness. Leonard knew better than to bed Jim, but he’d been there, convenient and willing, and he ticked all of the boxes Leonard was looking for this night. It didn't take much convincing to lead Jim back to his place. They tumbled into bed without so much as a word, or second thought, or even a warm up drink to top off the evening.  It was quick and hard, and somewhat dirtier than Leonard was used to, but it was what they both needed.

"Dammit, Jim," Leonard whispered to the darkness as he rose from the bed, heading toward the bathroom. Avoiding the mirror, he left the light off, relying on the moonlight for the needed shower. The evidence of Jim's visit was splashed across his stomach and thighs, and when he caught sight of it, he waited for the wave of nausea to pass before turning on the water.

The evening entailed a celebration for the re-launch of the Enterprise, but Leonard hadn’t felt like rejoicing about heading into space again. He went to the party because everyone expected him to, and while he stood in the corner, sipping his whiskey, Jim worked the room with bright eyes and a smile to make the strongest man weak.

Jim was captivating to watch, a saluting and hand-shaking machine. Grasping forearms, slapping shoulders, he knew exactly how to charm a crowd. It was a gift that Leonard didn’t have, and didn’t want. He preferred a more solitary evening, just him and whatever was on the top shelf of the bar.

When Jim finally made his way back to Leonard, his body was humming with a need to break free from the protocol the evening called for.

“Come on, Bones, let’s get out of here.”

“I’m fine, Jim. I don’t need to be babysat.”

“I know you don’t.” Jim shrugged. “But I have to get out of this uniform.”

Thinking back, Jim intended that double entendre. Regardless, Leonard was happy to help. He’d drunk too much, but that was nothing new since they’d been grounded on Earth. For the past few months he’d gone back to his old ways, trying to hide it from his friends, and for the most part it worked, except on Jim, of course. He saw right through Bones’ facade, never calling him on his drinking, but always monitoring, and carefully refocusing Bones and his transgressions.

The re-christening of the Enterprise blindsided Bones, leaving a hole in his gut the size of a fist. Earth was safe, maybe a little boring, but Leonard could live with boring. On Earth there were no homicidal maniacs hell bent on destroying planets or ships. There were no black, body bags filled with friends. Earth was where Leonard could breathe. At least he could before he’d been inside Jim.

Leonard wasn't sure how long he stayed in the shower, enough for the water to cool, but not enough to wash away his remorse. He’d entertained the notion of fucking Jim once or twice, but through the years at the academy, he'd managed to keep his dick in his pants when it came to sleeping with the wrong people.  

It was a mistake he couldn't take back. He was never any good at one-night stands, let alone a one-night stand with a friend.

 _Friend,_ he thought, and scoffed, shoving his head under the stream of cool water.

Jim wasn’t just any friend. He was his captain, and when he grabbed hold of Jim’s coat collar, and stuck his tongue down his throat, he hadn’t been thinking about the repercussions of that clusterfuck. He managed to find the most inappropriate and precarious relationship he had, and acted selfishly, all because he'd been a little goddamn sad, and now he was going to pay for his bad decisions for the next five years.

=/\=

The second time it happened, it was more cliché than the first.

A goddamn wedding. Leonard snorted, pausing for a brief moment, pulling away.

"What?" Jim asked.

The sound of his voice broke the illusion of what this was. The last time, neither of them spoke, both too drunk and too needy to do anything else but fuck and run. This time, they were relatively sober, having only a few glasses of celebratory wine. Jim had married the young ensigns, and agreed to a small celebration on the promenade deck.

The jovial atmosphere on the ship was contagious; enough that Jim followed Leonard back to his cabin for a glass of bourbon. Neither of them had been ready to call it a night, but they acknowledged their presence at the party as captain and CMO put a damper on the evening for most of the guests in attendance. So, they retired to Leonard's cabin, like many evenings during this first year of the mission, only this time, there was an uninvited guest with them. The tension from the events of the day was strong and suffocating as they sat on the tiny couch, trying to forget their last intimate evening.

It only took one more glass of bourbon before Jim’s cock was in Leonard’s mouth. He dropped to his knees, unbuttoning Jim’s pants before he could protest. His cock was heavy and full in his mouth, and Leonard devoured it in a way he’d never sucked cock before. He still considered the first time a mistake, so, the fact he fell prey to Jim’s charms a year later, didn't say much for his constitution. And now Jim was talking, only reaffirming how very wrong this was. Leonard was too far gone to stop though, so he hitched Jim’s hips forward, taking him all the way in until the tip of his cock hit the back of his throat.

"Bones—” One word, a breathless moan, followed by a hiss, and then Jim threaded his fingers in Leonard’s hair, finding a rhythm they could both keep up with.

Leonard wasn't a fool. He knew what this was to Jim, and he'd be an idiot if he thought it was more than a horny night between two consenting adults. Jim wasn't his, he wasn't Jim's, and that was evident in every interaction the two of them had on the ship.

After he greedily swallowed all that Jim offered, and Jim reciprocated in turn, they collapsed on the sofa, both reluctant to move, lest they break the spell of ambiguity. When he'd caught his breath, Leonard went to the head to clean up. The pit in his stomach seemed to grow tendrils, working their way up to his heart, clutching it tightly at the notion Jim would still be lying there in the low-lit room. He didn't know what he would do, hell, he couldn't exactly kick him out, but he didn't want to face that conversation. When the door slid open, those tendrils squeezed, cutting off his breath momentarily when his eyes landed on the empty sofa.

Even though Jim was gone, the pit stayed long after, deep into the night and the next few weeks.

=/\=

The third time it happened, Leonard didn’t even recognize himself when it was finished.

He stood in the center of his hotel room cataloguing his bruises, and the scratch along his neck; he didn’t want to think about what he had done to Jim, the marks he left, like he was stamping 'Property of Leonard H. McCoy' all over his skin. It was supposed to be a pleasure planet, one of the few in the system, but Leonard felt anything but pleasured.

Slightly disturbed by how easily his anger surfaced, Leonard turned slowly, looking around the room in disgust, only to be faced with the evidence of what transpired only minutes ago.

There was a dent in the wall the size of a torso, Jim’s back to be exact, where Leonard shoved him up against the wall instead of punching him in the face. Leonard talked this time; he’d done a lot of it, telling Jim exactly what he thought about his pornographic spectacle with a Caitian and an Andorian on the dance floor of the club, and how Jim's actions almost started an intergalactic war between the two species.

“You’re a captain, for God’s sake!” He grabbed Jim’s shirt collar. “You never learn!” He twisted him around. “All you do is think with your cock!” That was when he shoved Jim against the wall, and it buckled under the weight. Granted, the walls were cheap and thin, like everything on the planet, but it still made Leonard pause for a moment and examine how he had gotten there. He just happened to glance Jim’s way, their eyes meeting in shock and horror, and then it was all over from there.

Leonard tore into Jim, gripping his hips and pulling him close, covering his mouth with his until Jim let him shove his tongue down his throat. Their clothes came off in a heated battle, which is where most of the scratching came from. But the marks Leonard left with his mouth were precise, and on purpose. He wanted to mark Jim in some perverted way; wanted to make him see that what they were doing was wrong. He didn’t want to face the truth of it, but a part of him wanted Jim to carry those marks into any other bed he might fall into while they were on shore leave.

Jim wasn’t a saint, hell, Leonard wasn’t either, but they’d never flagrantly displayed their conquests in front of each other. Tonight had been different, though. As soon as Jim took the couple by their hands, leading them to the dance floor, Leonard knew whom the show was for. What Jim hadn’t realized was that the couple hadn’t come alone, and by the time Leonard pulled Jim outside, and away from flying fists, Leonard’s anger had blown its top.

They didn’t even make it to the bed in the hotel room. Jim came pressed up against the crushed wall, while Leonard thrust hard and fast, punishing him for trying to stick his dick in someone else.

When it was over, Jim cautiously bent to pick up his clothes, wincing in pain, and Leonard did too. Jim dressed while Leonard rested against the wall, panting, his eyes raised to the ceiling to hold back the tears.

“Fuck you, Bones.”

Jim slammed the door, leaving Leonard alone in the room with only his shame.

=/\=

The fourth time it happened, Leonard hadn’t been all that present.

Plagued by a fog of anguish, he wasn’t convinced it had even transpired. If he wasn’t sitting at his desk with his pants undone, and bare from the waist up, he might have thought he dreamt it. His hands still shook, and when he asked the computer for the whereabouts of Jim Kirk, the reassuring voice told him the captain was currently in his quarters.

Jim was alive, and they just fucked...again.

Leonard knew what death felt like, maybe not in literal terms, but definitely in heartbreak definition, so when he’d heard the transmission relaying the destruction of the captain’s shuttle, that gut-wrenching pain crippled him for a second time. Jim was gone, and he had nothing to show for it other than years of regret.

Then Jim showed up in the doorway of his office, very much not dead, and there was nothing but the need to touch him, crawl inside his skin to make sure it was really him. It took Leonard two strides to reach Jim, then he was pulling at Jim’s clothes, carefully, but with an urgency that spoke what he couldn’t say in words.

“Bones,” Jim whispered. “I know. I know.”

Except Leonard didn’t think he did know. It wasn’t Jim who was always left behind; he wasn’t the one whose heart broke open each time Jim’s life was threatened. Leonard tried his damndest to distance himself from this man, hoping he could keep it casual, but they were everything except casual, and Leonard didn’t want to lose Jim in death or in life, so he skirted around what this was, denying himself from feeling anything more than what he was capable of handling. The road to heartbreak was a road he knew too well, one filled with flasks of bourbon, desperate benders and delusions of Starfleet enrollment grandeur. It was a road he wouldn’t survive the next time around. These fleeting moments with Jim let him keep his dignity bottled up and safely tucked away for a little while longer.

Then Jim had to go and die again, and that bottle was tapped, flooding the floor and he couldn’t get the lid back on. All he could do was hold Jim tight, rock against his hips until he could feel every inch of his skin pressed up against Jim’s.  Leonard pushed him to the cold floor, lining their cocks up, and rutted against Jim, relishing in the heat of his warm and very animated body.

When he came, he buried his face in Jim’s neck, and if he sobbed a little, Jim did nothing to acknowledge he heard him.

=/\=

The fifth time it happened, Leonard knew this was going to be the very last time.

He saw it in Jim's eyes, felt it in the way he moved underneath him, and the soft touch of his mouth on his shoulder. This was a goodbye.

Leonard knew this farewell should have happened five years ago. Even though there was something between them, a friendship, a longing, or something he couldn't quite define, this wasn’t healthy. Jim never stayed long enough for the sheets to dry, not any of the four times they had done this. Leonard never planned any of these nights, they just happened with reckless abandon, and it was never about anything more than instant gratification. Except it felt different this time.

The lights were low in his cabin, just enough for him to see the sadness in Jim’s eyes. He wanted to look away, anywhere but into those judgmental eyes boring into him, making him question everything that led to this point. He held his gaze though, moving slowly inside Jim, memorizing the flush of his cheeks and the tip of his tongue resting on his top lip. Jim was beautiful like this, and it was the first time Leonard took the time to watch him. With every thrust, Jim’s chin lifted, and he let out a soft moan that shot straight down Leonard’s spine. He kept the pace slow and steady, so different than any of the other times, making sure to angle his hips so he could memorize Jim’s groans when he found the right spot. Leonard’s heart hurt at the thought of never seeing him like this again, at the thought of this being a goodbye, and as he rode the wave until his breaths turned to gasps, he discovered one very important thing: he didn't want to wake up alone anymore.

He wasn't any good at this. Not one night stands, not relationships, and definitely not love. At that word, his cheeks flushed. He didn't know why he was so emotional this time, enough that the idea of Jim walking out the door hurt like a knife to his gut. He wanted more from this fallacy, from Jim, and more from himself. It took him five years to figure out what Jim was to him, and this, right here, wrapped and tangled in Jim's limbs was all he wanted.

Burying his head in Jim's neck, he breathed him in, taking courage from his familiarity. Jim tensed under his arms, ready to make his exit, and Leonard felt that clutch again, and the panic that came with it. As Jim tried to untangle himself from his arms, Leonard held firm, and with the emotion of five years bottled up inside of him, he simply let go with one modest word.

“Stay.”

Jim was still tense, both of them stuck in stasis while the weight of that one word settled over them. The rush of rejection came at him like an ocean wave. He thought he was ready to love again, but now he was ready to die from embarrassment. He’d fucked everything up, and all he could do was close his eyes and hope Jim would be kind.

Then Jim's body went slack beneath Leonard. He placed his lips just below Leonard's ear, pressing ever so softly and whispered, "I thought you’d never ask.”

 


End file.
